Colorado State has fired head coach Jay Norvell, according to multiple reports on Sunday. The move comes a day after the Rams dropped a 31-19 decision at home to Hawaii, dropping the Rams to 2-5 on the season.
Norvell exits Fort Collins with an 18-26 record over three-and-a-half seasons, and a 13-13 mark in Mountain West play. The 2024 campaign was actually Norvell’s best, going 8-5 with a second place finish in the MW and a trip to the Arizona Bowl.
The Norvell hiring was viewed as a coup by Colorado State; the Rams swiped him away after a 33-26 run across five seasons (four bowl trips) at Mountain West bunk mate Nevada.
The Rams opened 36,000-seat Canvas Stadium in 2017 and will move, along with most of the conference, from the Mountain West to the Pac-12 beginning next season.
With the move, Colorado State becomes the XXth school to make a change this season. The Rams also continue a trend of moving on their head coach the day after the club’s homecoming game; Colorado State welcomed a record crowd of 40,416 on Saturday.
Apropos of nothing: Trent Bray, James Franklin and Billy Napier were all fired after their school’s homecoming games.
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) October 19, 2025
Jay Norvell enters his fourth season at the helm of the Colorado State program after he was named the 24th head coach in program history on Monday, Dec. 6, 2021.
Norvell, who led the Nevada Wolf Pack to four bowl games in five seasons (2017-21) as head coach prior to coming to Fort Collins, has an offensive-coaching acumen which is unquestioned after he built a conference title contender at Nevada. Former Wolf Pack quarterback Carson Strong was a two-time MW Offensive Player of the Year as Nevada led the MW in passing offense in 2021 at 365.8 yards per game. The Wolf Pack posted four-consecutive winning seasons under Norvell including a pair of bowl wins in 2018 (Arizona) and 2020 (Famous Idaho Potato).
In 2024, Norvell guided the program back to the postseason, reaching a bowl game for the first time since 2017, with the Rams facing Miami (Ohio) in the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl. The team reached the eight-win mark for the first time since 2014, and the football team set an attendance record with an average of 33,082 as the Rams hosted seven home games for the first time in history.
Norvell’s first season in Fort Collins may not have seen growth in the win-loss column from the team he inherited, but the cultural progress under Norvell’s direction was undeniable.
The Rams posted a 3-9 record in his first season, a campaign which opened against CFP semifinalist Michigan and was filled with seven teams which advanced to the postseason. Starting three different quarterbacks during the season (all of whom were redshirt or true freshmen), the Rams showed signs of improvement on offense as the season progressed, averaging 247.3 yards of total offense the first half, improving to 324.1 the second half.
